ACER ASPIRE T180-I97Z

ID: PCD01

HISTORY

This Acer desktop PC was given to me after I setup the owner's new machine running Windows 10. Aimed at the budget market, the Aspire T180 series was once very popular. Although not known for great performance, these machines were still in common use until a couple of years ago, their downfall being the drop in support for Windows XP.


SPECIFICATIONS

Machine Type: Desktop Tower

Model: ACER ASPIRE T180-I97Z
Year of Manufacturer: 2006
Motherboard: ECS MCP61SM-AM REV 1.0
Chipset: NVIDIA GEFORCE 6100S
Processor: AMD SEMPRON 3200+ 1.8GHz 64-Bit (Socket AM2)
RAM: 1.5GB DDR2 (1x 512MB, 1x 1GB 240-Pin DIMM)
Hard Drive(s): 250GB SATA 3.5"
Optical Drive(s): DVD-RW PATA 5.25"
Graphics: Integrated (Nvidia)
Audio: Integrated (Realtek)
Network: Integrated (1Gbps Ethernet)
USB: 2.0 (3 Front, 4 Rear)
Power Supply: Delta Electronics 250W
Other Features: Card Reader, Dial-Up Modem
COA: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005


INITIAL INSPECTION

There didn't appear to be too much wrong with this system, but a quick look inside the power supply revealed a blown capacitor. Elsewhere the system was in relatively good shape for it's age, although would be much too old to run Windows 10 reliably.

Blown capacitor inside power supply

REPAIRS & MODIFICATIONS

• The failed capacitor inside the power supply was replaced (2200uF/6.3v).
• 512MB of RAM was added, bringing the total to 2GB.
• The DVD drive was replaced, as it would not read disks reliably, even after cleaning the lens.

After replacing the failed capacitor in the power supply

PREPARATION

With the repair on the power supply completed, I put some fresh thermal compound on the processor and heat-sink and put the system back together. There were no problems with diagnostics, but I made a silly mistake by updating the BIOS to the latest revision without checking to make sure that write protection was turned off in BIOS setup. The result was a completely un-bootable machine, sticking at a 'Verifying DMI Pool Data...' message on each attempt. Fortunately, a replacement BIOS chip could be obtained from eBay for a few pounds, and I was able to successfully flash this to the latest version with no problems. With the computer back to a bootable state I was ready to move onto the next stage of installing an operating system.

SETUP

I made Ubuntu 14 my first choice of operating system for this ageing computer. However, try as I might, I could not get it to work stably. After a few minutes, the system would lock up with distorted graphics. I initially thought this must be a hardware problem, but thorough burn-in tests run in Windows discounted this possibility. Eventually, I abandoned Linux and returned to tried and true Windows XP. This may not be a completely secure computer, but it should be fast enough for Google and other non-critical tasks.


CONCLUSION

This was the first old computer that I decided to bring up to speed, but due to the problem with the BIOS update it has only just been finished. With testing complete, it's ready for it's new owner. As with many of the computers recycled so far, the processor limits it's usefulness in the real world. However, it's still more than capable for word processing, storing photographs or music and for looking up information on Google with the Opera web browser.

PACKARD BELL IMEDIA B2217

ID: PCD7

HISTORY

The owner of this computer was experiencing stability problems and decided to replace the tower with a new model. This is a very typical desktop system of the later Windows Vista era, when multiple gigabytes of RAM and dual core processors became common. In some respects little has changed since, with many new models only coming with 4GB of RAM as standard. However, the processor is weak in comparison to modern machines, but it may still provide adequate performance for general use.


INITIAL SPECIFICATIONS

Machine Type: Desktop Tower
Model: PACKARD BELL IMEDIA B2217
Year of Manufacturer: 2009
Motherboard: ECS MCP73VT-PM (V1.0)
Chipset: NVIDIA NFORCE 610I
Processor: INTEL CELERON E1400 2.00GHz 64-BIT Dual Core (Socket 775)
RAM: 3GB DDR2 (1x 1GB, 1x 2GB 240-Pin DIMM)
Hard Drive(s): 250GB SATA 3.5"
Optical Drive(s): DVD-RW SATA 5.25"
Graphics: Integrated (Nvidia)
Audio: Integrated (Realtek)
Network: Integrated (100Mbps Ethernet)
USB: 2.0 (2 Front, 4 Rear)
Power Supply: FSP 250W
Other Features: None
COA: Windows Vista Home Basic


INITIAL INSPECTION
The motherboard looked in good condition, but some bad capacitors were found in the power supply. These would have likely been the cause of the stability problems.

Bad capacitors inside PSU

PSU following recap

REPAIRS & MODIFICATIONS

• 1000uF PSU capacitors replaced

PREPARATION

Once the repair on the power supply was completed, fans cleaned and CMOS battery replaced, the system fired up and completed diagnostics successfully.

SETUP

The system had been previously running Windows Vista Basic, but Microsoft and Google support has ended for this operating system. Unlike Windows XP, Vista was not well liked and is no longer widely used. Therefore, the options were Windows 10 or a variant of Linux. The loophole that allowed users of Windows XP and Vista to upgrade to Windows 10 for free has now been closed, but a working, valid key can be purchased from eBay for just a couple of pounds! Just how this works I am not sure, as Microsoft sells the same thing for about 50x the price. However, these cheap keys do work, and having used a few, both for Freecycle and to upgrade customer's machines, have so far not run into any problems with activation. With this in mind, I opted for Windows 10, which installed OK. Initially there was no graphics driver available, and performance was dreadful. However, the Windows 7/8 driver from the Nvidia website worked, and appears to be stable.

CONCLUSION

Performance is adequate, but not the greatest, mainly due to the slower Celeron processor. It's a good example of what a system needs to be to run Windows 10 properly, as minimum and even recommended system requirements are usually not realistic in the real world. The problem is that computers are often doing more than one thing at a time, even if the operator is only working on one task. A slower system might run OK most of the time but then slow to a crawl when Windows starts to check for updates, for example.